Using Prepositional Phrases-The First Step to Sounding Intelligent

Students usually take grammar not because they want to write without errors but because they want to write in a matter that sounds intelligent. This might seem odd to some since wanting to sound intelligent seems to be more of a style issue than a grammar issue. Style and grammar, however, are not easily separated.

One of the ways students mistakenly try to make their writing sound more intelligent is by using larger words and trying out a semi-colon here or there. I am not a fan of semi-colons mostly because they are usually erroneously or, even worse, needlessly deployed by writers trying to give their writing an appearance of sophistication. They are often used by students who have seen them used in more educated writings, but do not know what an independent clause is in the first place.

One of the more common misconceptions is that vocabulary marks the sophisticated writer. This misconception is what causes students to pump their writing full of words that sound intelligent but are usually misused or meaningless. Or they start using the dreaded metatextual phrases and clauses such as “in this essay” or “as it has been said” or “I will be discussing.”

Students know they are fluffing up their writing with these phrases, but they often think this is how sophisticated writers sound, For them, good writing sounds good. The idea that good writing is about precision in thinking is something of a new idea and often quite liberating especially when students realize that it can be done through using phrases and clauses more effectively.

In most cases, teaching students about words gives them the idea that good writing is about choosing the right words. That is where, unfortunately, a lot of goofy notions about writing begin. The first problem is that we really do not think in words. We think in phrases and clauses. So writing with the idea that good writing means using words well causes a basic disconnect between how you are trying to writing and how you are thinking, and not much good can come of that.

Prepositional phrases are probably one of the easiest phrase types to use but they also tend to be one of the most useful because they function as adjectives and adverbs. When I show students that they do not include either the subject or verb and are “non-essential” to sentence structure, students often start to dismiss them as not being all that important, but once they see a few examples of writing where it is used effectively, they start to realize how important they are to making their ideas and explanations more precise.

There is, for example, this paragraph which avoids using prepositional phrases:

Descartes had three dalmatians which he named Cogito, Ergo and Sum. He allowed them to run outside. Descartes taught them a few tricks, but they mostly liked to be left alone to think.

The writing here is clear enough and grammatically correct, but most students recognize it as sounding a good deal like Dr. Seusss’ or even their own writing. It is comprised of a series of declarations composed with independent clauses and not much else. This style is quite common among students who have been criticized a good deal for their grammar since it passes under the the red-pen radar and does not include a great number of errors, especially such bug-a-boos as comma-splices or fragments.

But I could change the stylistic effect of the writing by introducing a single grammatical construction, the prepositional phrase, and adding it throughout to provide more precision in the writing:

In his younger days, Descartes had three of the cutest dalmatians which he named Cogito, Ergo and Sum. On most days, he allowed them to run outside in the open fields with the butterflies and daffodils. Descartes taught them a few tricks with sticks and balls, but they mostly liked to be left alone to think about the ineluctible modality of the visible.

The second paragraph is nothing impressive by most standards, but it reads far, far better than the first one, and the only difference is the addition of prepositional phrases at certain locations. This one grammatical structure ends up making a significant difference in moving the writing towards sounding more intelligent, which is one of the primary goals the students want to achieve with their writing.

Getting students to use dependent clauses and relative clauses would move them further along, but one of the early stages of grammar instruction should be getting students comfortable with and capable of using prepositional phrases. Learning how to use clauses can be quite a challenge, especially when students have so many difficulties with finding subjects and verbs in the first place, but learning prepositional phrases is a good deal easier and makes an immediate and tangible difference in writing style.

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About Joseph Pendleton

I am the Reading Specialist--Basic Skills at Victor Valley College. I teach the reading courses in the English Department and the basic English grammar courses in the Basic Skills Department. My primary interests as a teacher is in how students retain the information and skills we teach them.
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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 5:42 AM and posted in Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.